Skybox Security Announces Support for Palo Alto Networks

Skybox Security, the leader in proactive security risk management, today announced upcoming support for Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls. This capability, contained in the next release of Skybox Firewall Assurance scheduled for April, will enable customers to automatically and consistently audit and manage firewall infrastructures that contain next-generation Palo Alto Networks firewalls.

“Our customers are actively evaluating next-generation firewalls such as those from Palo Alto Networks,” explained RJ Dobbins, Strategic Account Manager at Secure Data Solutions, a Skybox VAR with a strong customer base in the energy sector. “We’re excited that the coming release of Skybox Firewall Assurance will help them manage multiple types of firewalls simultaneously, paving the way for fast migration to next-gen firewalls.”

Skybox Security support goes beyond simply treating next-generation firewalls as yet another network firewall. Skybox solutions incorporate information on users and applications, newly available in access control lists, into its network model and analytics. This capability gives customers a means to understand the effectiveness of the network security controls, including next-generation firewalls, in protecting the critical applications against cyber threats or misuse. Customers will be able to create security policies that contain granular user and application information, check firewall rulesets against these policies, track changes, and check platform configurations through Skybox Firewall Assurance.

“We are very pleased to be able to support our customers who are deploying Palo Alto Network firewalls as well as those who are evaluating the firewalls in their labs,” explained Gidi Cohen, CEO of Skybox Security. “This announcement is also extremely important for our joint distributors and partners, who are showing strong interest from their customer base.“

Key features in the upcoming release include expanded compliance analysis capabilities for checking best practices for access lists incorporating user and application information. The Skybox change tracking capability will enable Palo Alto Network customers to view changes in the configurations over time. Plus, customers using Skybox Network Assurance will be able to incorporate Palo Alto Networks firewalls in a comprehensive network map to troubleshoot access and connectivity issues between firewalls, routers, load balancers and other network devices.

“We’re very glad to see that companies like Skybox are going to extend their firewall auditing and analysis capabilities to really take advantage of next-gen firewalls,” said Punit Minocha, VP Business Development at Palo Alto Networks. “This is a big step forward for customers and will help them accelerate their migration plans while integrating next-gen firewalls into their existing environments.”